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(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP) Republican Senators Cory Gardner, John Barrasso, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, John Thune, and Majority Whip John Cornyn on September 6, 2017 democracy_rules.jpg T he Republican Party has now officially abandoned Latinos. It’s not clear how much of a political price Republicans will pay for this, but we may find out as early as next year, when midterms may coincide with a GOP-authored mass deportation. Sure, there are Republicans who want to find a legislative fix during the six-month window that President Trump has given Congress to act before he yanks legal protections from 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. These “Dreamers” have been working and studying here legally since 2012 under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But who really believes that this GOP-controlled Congress can enact a bill to save DACA by this spring? Republicans have killed or blocked immigration legislation...

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs the Capitol after a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about Russian meddling in the election and possible connection to the Trump campaign, in Washington, Wednesday, June 21, 2017. democracy_rules.jpg A midst floods, nuclear threats, and white nationalist violence, the latest disclosures from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election would be easy to overlook. But the news that Trump allies last year sought the Kremlin’s help with a Moscow real-estate deal, and voiced hopes that it would boost his presidential campaign, moves the Russia scandal into new territory. Trump’s most hard-core loyalists may not care, but the broader GOP electorate is starting to pay attention, and that should worry Republicans facing midterm elections next year. Russia is not the only factor fueling GOP unease, but there’s evidence that Mueller’s investigation is...

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) A White House staffer records President Trump speaking at a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity on July 19, 2017, in Washington. democracy_rules.jpg W hen it comes to hatred and discrimination, white supremacists and neo-Nazis stand in a class by themselves. But the public condemnation heaped on far-right nationalists, and on President Donald Trump for pandering to them, should not be reserved just for the nation’s most blatant racists. For most Americans, it’s instinctual to reject those who wave Ku Klux Klan–style torches or banners bearing swastikas. But what about the racists who boast law degrees and sparkling resumes, and sport suits and ties? These haters, too, have flourished in the Trump administration. And their policies of bigotry, safely cloaked behind mainstream-sounding think tanks and federal commissions, can do as much or more damage as the thugs on the street. This is particularly true in the arena...

AP Photo/Cliff Owen House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, unveil the Democrats new agenda. democracy_rules.jpg I t’s a good thing for Democrats that the “ Better Deal ” agenda that party leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi unveiled on Monday will not be their only campaign message as they head into the 2018 midterms. There’s nothing exactly wrong with Democrats’ plan to raise wages, train workers, invest in infrastructure, and break up monopolies that hurt competition. It’s just that the whole rollout, staged in the white, working class town of Berryville, Virginia, had a self-consciously scripted air about it. It’s easy to see why voters at the party’s base want their leaders to show more passion and grit. That’s why House Democrats’ recent moves to force debates on ethics and accountability issues deserve special notice. In a new package of bills and in a series of...

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Vice President Mike Pence, left, accompanied by Vice-Char Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, right, speaks during the first meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity on July 19, 2017. democracy_rules.jpg T here was a surreal quality to the presidential “election integrity” commission’s first meeting on Wednesday, which was streamed live from a government building next to the White House, but was not open to the public. President Trump strode in to declare that “this is not a Democrat or Republican issue” and hail the “bipartisan” nature of a commission that’s headed by two Republicans and dominated by GOP members. He pledged a “very transparent process” that “will be open for everybody to see,” on a commission that’s already been sued for violating the disclosure and open meeting requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The commission’s official chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, quoted Ronald Reagan calling the right...